Critical severity · published Dec 27, 2019
CVE-2019-20041
wp_kses_bad_protocol in wp-includes/kses.php in WordPress before 5.3.1 mishandles the HTML5 colon named entity, allowing attackers to bypass input sanitization, as demonstrated by…
9.8
CVSS
4.5%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
wp_kses_bad_protocol in wp-includes/kses.php in WordPress before 5.3.1 mishandles the HTML5 colon named entity, allowing attackers to bypass input sanitization, as demonstrated by the javascript: substring.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)4.5% · higher than 92% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
WO
WordPress · WordPress
before 5.3.1 · source: NVD
DL
Debian Linux · Debian
8.0; 9.0; 10.0 · source: NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-20041
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2019-20041
Patch
https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/commit/b1975463dd995da19bb40d3fa0786498717e3c53
Mailing List
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2020/01/msg00010.html
Mailing List
https://seclists.org/bugtraq/2020/Jan/8
Release Notes
https://wordpress.org/news/2019/12/wordpress-5-3-1-security-and-maintenance-release/
Third Party Advisory
https://www.debian.org/security/2020/dsa-4599
Third Party Advisory
https://www.debian.org/security/2020/dsa-4677
More from WordPress
9.8
CVE-2026-63030
WordPress < 7.0.2 - REST API batch-route confusion and SQL injection issue leading to Remote Code Execution
9.8
CVE-2020-25213
WordPress File Manager Plugin Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
9.8
CVE-2016-10033
The mailSend function in the isMail transport in PHPMailer before 5.2.18 might allow remote attackers to pass extra parameters to the mail command and consequently execute…
8.1
CVE-2026-87902
WordPress Core Remote File Inclusion Vulnerability
7.5
CVE-2020-11738
WordPress Snap Creek Duplicator Plugin File Download Vulnerability